The Legal Committee discussed and approved for the 1st reading the Draft Law on Amnesty, submitted as a legal initiative of the Georgian Dream faction.

According to the reporter, the Chair of the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee, Rati Ionatamishvili, the Draft Law consists of 16 Articles. As he noted, the legal initiative envisages the forms of amnesty as follows: immediate release, reduction of the sentence by ½, ¼, and 1/6, and the reduction of a conditional sentence for the probationers by one year.

“Reduction of a sentence by 1/6 and a reduction of a conditional sentence for the probationers constitutes a significant novelty. Today, we have 22 000 probationers and the amnesty shall immediately apply to 7000, by which, I mean the reduction of a probationary detention term by one year. It is noteworthy that the initiated Draft is in compliance with the criminal law policy priorities applied in Georgia today”, - he said.

The Draft shall not apply to convicts for murder, sale of narcotic drugs, sexual crime, aggravated robbery, terrorism, corruption and official offenses, mob activities, conventional crimes and other grave and particularly grave crimes. Per the reporter, since 2012 up-today, the Georgian Dream has adopted 10 laws on amnesty, and the Draft discussed today is the 11th.

“By its scopes, the Draft Law on Amnesty, which we categorize as balanced amnesty, is quite impressive since it applies to 4 839 inmates and envisages immediate release for 1000 prisoners. The goal of amnesty was initially declared by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on June 28 in his annual report to the Parliament, when he announced that the Georgian Dream has been developing the Draft Law on Amnesty with a clear and certain goal – leveling the number of the prisoners to the European standard”, - he added.